When Worlds Collide
by KarmaLeafbarer
Summary: Another ZAGR fic R+R Welcome (ALL OF CHAPTER 3 ADDED 07/27/01)
1. "He Will Pay"

  
Heh...lookit me. I'm jumping on every bandwagon I see ^_^ Right then...this is my personal thoughts as to what a relationship between Gaz and Zim might be like. The cast doesn't belong to me and is property of Jhonen Vasquez and the producers of Nickelodeon (meaning that this is where I give credit where its due and admit that I'm too pathetic to think up my own characters so I'm sponging off of these guys) This is the first part of many that I hope to post and i hope people enjoy it. I did my best to stay "in-character" for the cast. And....hey what're you reading MY yapping for? Story's down there! :D  
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Of all the rotten luck...Gaz stormed down the street, a cartridge clutched in her fingers. That was the absolute last time she sat next to that freaky green kid on the bus.   
  
Truthfully, she didn't know what had possessed her to sit herself next to him in the first place, other than the fact she knew her brother would have a conniption when he saw....however, once the novelty of Dib's mindless screaming and ordering her to "get away from the alien" had worn off, she had returned to the welcome bask of her Game Slave.   
  
Ten minutes or so into the bus trip, she had moved to exchange games, retrieving another from the pouch of her backpack, and as the title screen warmed up, tossing the previous one into what she thought had been the back pocket, but apparently had been Zim's knapsack. The blasted bus must have shifted its contents as they had turned corners and such. When the driver had reached her stop, Gaz made a quick snatch for one last game to play on the walk home...preferably a loud one that would drown out her brother's impending lecture.   
  
"Move it." she commanded Zim with tight-lipped hatred. The boy had goggled up at her a moment and then obediently slid out of the seat to allow her to pass as she grabbed up her backpack and slung it over one shoulder, sidling down the isleway. Dib had already begun his berating her before they had even made it to the door.   
  
"Are you insane, Gaz?? He's dangerous!! You have no idea what he's capable of!!" and so on...and so on. After years of her brother's wild accusations and rants, she had learned to drown it into a dull annoying buzz in the back of her head as she slid the game into the slot in the back of her Game Slave with an accepting click and hit the power switch. Instead of the typical game logo warming her screen, however, several lines of incomprehensible gibberish had appeared, along with a small pop and a hiss in the back of the portable game system. She had gasped and dropped it on the sidewalk with a clatter as ribbons of smoke began to curl out of the casing, and then with no warning whatsoever, it had burst into a kamikaze ball of flames.  
  
After Dib's demanding that she tell him what had happened, and she had silenced him with a brisk elbow in the ribs, Gaz gathered the sad remnants of her Game Slave, watching as the last few flames retreated back into the case and slowly died, leaving only the acrid smell of melting plastic and destroyed circuits. "My.....game....slave....." she growled through tightly clenched teeth. Her eerily calm and disinterested demeanor was quickly shifting into unbridled rage. Dib, realizing that his attempts to calm her would be futile, and his attempts to survive would be even MORE futile if he stayed around, hurriedly scampered in the direction of home, not looking back and certainly not slowing down.  
  
Gaz turned the ruined Game Slave over in her hands, wrenching the game out of the back slot and examining it, only to find that it wasn't a game at all....a cartridge, yes, but not a game. "Zim..." she snarled. "He. Will. DIE!" her last word echoed off of the street, providing eerie acoustics as she rose to her feet and began in the direction of the green kid's house. She knew where he lived, only because Dib had made it a point to scream obscenities and vows of vengeance at it every time they passed it. What a moron he was....there was no such thing as aliens. Just stupid weird kids with no ears and green skin that broke her video game players.  
  
She squeezed the faulty cartridge in her hand, wishing she possessed the strength to crush it between her fingers. "I mean, what kind of complete dweeb designs a video game that ruins a Game Slave??" she asked no one in particular as she stormed down the sidewalk, her shoes clacking noisily on the pavement. Her destination was in plain view now, but then she could see the unnerving stare of the gnomes lining the walkway to the small dwelling from some half a mile off. Imbedded in the lawn were a couple of gaudy flamingos and a flag reading "I "heart" Earth" boldly. Gaz was not one to find much unsettling, but even she had to admit that the environment surrounding Zim's home was somewhat...well....spooky. "His parents must be even dorkier than HE is." she thought to herself bitterly.  
  
But there were more important things to worry about....like wringing Zim's neck, for one. She started up the walkway, hands clenched at her sides, her mind producing colorful images of the torture she would design for Zim if he gave her any crap about replacing the Game Slave. He owed her at LEAST that much.  
  
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"Hideous Earth scum...." Zim grumbled, gingerly removing the membranous lenses from his eyes that hid their natural red-hazed color and tore the raven-haired wig from his head, allowing his scalp to feel the air for the first time that day. There, that was better.....his antennae perked upward, stretching themselves out from the cramped position they had been in for the past eight hours. Around him, the latest computers in irken technology hummed softly, confirming that everything in his base beneath the house was online and in perfect working order. It had been a typical day, all-in-all, he supposed. Gir had awakened him with a cheery smile and a plate of black smoking filth which had once been an omlette, according to the robot.   
  
At skool, the learning unit, Ms. Bitters, had gone about her lessons as usual, beginning her tirade with a brief explanation of events known as the "World Wars". It reminded Zim of a movie that had been intercepted on its way to the planet Arrellia for Irk's entertainment when he had been younger...not four days out of his amniotic cylinder. He had remembered, even then, cackling with the other Irken troops at how poorly done the portrayal of battle had been. The explanation, however, had trit-trotted off into a rant about how World War Three would mark the end of mankind's existance as it was known to all. p  
  
The rest of the day, he had tuned her out as she went into her pleasant nirvana of doom. He guessed that the ancient human obsessed herself so much with destruction and death because she wished for it on herself. He couldn't blame her, he supposed. If he was older than sand, he'd wish for a little doom himself. At lunch, as he had sat alone at his usual table and tried to decipher the slop on his styrafoam plate which the earthlings were attempting to pass off as food, there had been another confrontation with Dib. That horrid earth boy was more than beginning to annoy him with his constant attempts to unmask him in front of everyone. "What's the matter, ZIM?" the boy's hysterical nasal voice resounded through his head. "Haven't you ever seen mashed potatos before? Or maybe you'd rather feast on some juicy succulent BRAINS!!!"   
  
The irken had been gratified when several people had stopped eating and glared at Dib, making him realize that he was making a public spectacle of himself and quietly retreating. The earthlings, as of yet, hadn't proved any real threat to his mission but still....rrgh, he wished he could just stomp on them all until nothing remained but a thick smelly red goo. And then he would laugh. He would laugh till it hurt, and for some variety, he'd laugh some more.  
  
However, all he wanted to do now, was simply relax and, as he always did, reflect on the events of the day and see if he hadn't uncovered yet another means to weakening the earthlings' hold on their defenses. Heaving a small sigh, the alien meandered across the floor, approaching a large white-masked tube and began to disrobe, carefully setting aside his outfit with his gloves and boots neatly on top of it. Irkens didn't sweat...nor did their bodies give off any sort of odor so his clothes, provided he was careful about spilling things on them, could be worn as many times as he liked without offending anyone. Yet another advantage he had over the earthlings, he had thought to himself smugly.   
  
Still, in his training program on Irk, he had gotten into the habit of regularly cleansing himself. "Grooming is important for any potential invader" his training manual had said. It never said WHY, of course, but who was he to question The Tallest? Fully unclothed, Zim approached a small keypad and quickly keyed in a series of buttons. The keypad made a furious grinding sound, processing the information, before giving an accepting beep as the tube opened at the base, allowing the irken to step inside. As the door hissed shut behind him, the cavity he stood in began to fill with a thick blue jelly, warm to the touch and smelling faintly of floor cleaner.   
  
Zim closed his eyes, allowing the fluid to overtake him, enveloping his body and drawing in a deep breath just as it covered his face. He felt himself leave the floor of the tube and become suspended in midair. It would be about two minutes before the gel would drain, but he wasn't worried...after all, an irken's Gheesroflex had twice the air capacity of the human lungs and he could comfortably hold his breath for up to five minutes if need be. World conquest....mmm, it was so near he could taste it. He could almost hear the earthlings crying for mercy as their civilization was crushed and his name rang out forever in irken glory. "ALL HAIL ZIM!!! ALL HAIL---  
  
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"---ZIM!!" Gaz roared at the closed door. She had begun by politely knocking. When that hadn't worked, she had resorted to pounding with her fists. "I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE!!!!" She wheeled back, giving the door a kick and drawing in her breath in a pained hiss as her shin exploded in pain. "Mmph, dammit!" she cursed under her breath, kneeling to examine herself. Not too bad...just a bruise.   
  
Alright if he wouldn't answer the door, she would resort to a different tactic...annoying him. A small sadistic smirk playing about her mouth, Gaz reached for the doorbell and pressed it. The human mind could only take so much of a doorbell before they'd either break down and answer the door or make a rudimentary noose out of dental floss and attempt to hang themselves from the nearest coat hook. Either was fine with Gaz at the moment as she moved to press it again. However, she never got the chance as the door swung open, a stringy-looking man with blank eyes and what appeared to be sparks coming out of his armpits appearing in the doorway.   
  
"Welcome to our residence, visitor!" he stated in a tinny voice that sounded like a bad recording of a father figure off of a sitcom. Zim had done a bit of modifications on his faux parental units so that they no longer greeted anyone who came to the door as their "son". Gaz stood, cold and unimpressed as she cast her slitted eyes at the father bot.   
  
"Is Zim home?" she asked flatly. Instead of answering, the father bot turned in time for the mother bot to broadside him, creating a flurry of blue and white sparks. She was covered in what appeared to be eggs, a healthy dollop of squeezy cheese on her head.  
  
"I'm afraid our little boy's in the shower right now." she stated in a chirpy, all-too-false voice. Gaz stared at them spitefully. She was right. They WERE weirder than Zim. She didn't know how it was possible, but they were. "My aren't you a cute little thing!" the mother bot chirped, extending a yellow-gloved hand as though to pinch Gaz's cheeks. "Just try it, Lady..." Gaz thought to herself menacingly.   
  
"Well why don'tcha come in and sit fer a spell, pardner?" Zim's "dad" offered, doing what Gaz guessed was an incredibly lame John Wayne impersonation. Gaz gave a long, defeated sigh, slapping her forehead. For putting her through this, Zim had just earned himself a thorough beating as soon as his parents weren't looking. She walked soundlessly past them and into the house, sparing a quick look around.   
  
"Who's your decorator? Bozo the clown?" she muttered under her breath, her eyes settling on the horrifically large portrait of a yellow monkey hung above the couch.   
  
"Want a drink, hon?" Zim's "mom" offered, zipping toward her with a can of Purple Fizzy. As she popped the tab, Gaz suddenly found herself covered in the tingling sticky liquid, sputtering angrily.  
  
"This was my favorite shirt!" she spat, glaring at the purple stain that married the black fabric and white skull on the front.  
  
"Aww...club soda'll get that stain right out!!" "Mom" declared, the unnerving grin never leaving her face as she raced backwards in a random direction, colliding loudly with the wall. As Gaz watched, "Mom" moved no more.  
  
"Hey! Wanna see a trick??" "Dad" inquired excitedly as he seized Gaz's shoulder and jerked her in his direction. "Nothing up my sleeves, and PRESTO!!!" the robot darted his arm out, grabbing ahold of Gaz's ear and tugging on it fervently.   
  
"Oww, let go! Let go, you freak!!" she cried, trying to wrench his hand away.   
  
"GIMME THE QUARTER!!! GIMME THE FREAKIN' QUARTER, CHARLIE!!!!" the Father bot shrieked, flailing his other arm wildly. As the spectacle took place, no one seemed to notice as a small green body surfaced nearby out of what appeared to be a very oddly-placed toilet beside the refridgerator. Zim had been alerted to the fact, as he had climbed out of his bath, that an intruder was in his home and was now coming to investigate, having hastily thrown on some clothing.  
  
He was betting Sqeeklars to Hudds that it was Dib again, and this time he hadn't even bothered with his disguise. Dib wanted an alien...fine. He'd give him an alien...in all of his red-eyed, antennaed glory. Maybe if he made a threat of laying eggs in his chest or some other such nonsense the humans had invented to portray foreign races in their poor excuses for entertainment, the earth boy would finally leave him in peace.  
  
However, he wasn't prepared for the utter chaos that unraveled before his eyes as he surfaced from his transport unit. The father bot was busily torturing someone...a squealing someone. Zim gritted his teeth in frustration. "Why me???" he mentally screamed, running forth to break things up.  
  
"Stop that!!" he cried, wriggling between the two of them and giving "Dad" a shove backwards.  
  
"Now you just calm down, mister, or someone's fixin' to get a time out!" the robot grated, lunging forward again. Zim strained, groaning and not sure he'd be able to hold it back for much longer. Much to his relief, not to mention dismay, the father bot zipped backwards on his single transportational wheel and had managed to slam into the hall coat closet, locking the door behind himself. Disaster averted, Zim attended to the next order of business...the intruder.  
  
"You pustule of waste, how dare you invade the home of Zim??" he roared as the human turned its head, squinting at him through heavily shaded eyes. Instantly, Zim recognized her. Gaz....Dib's little sister. What in the name of Irk was SHE doing here?  
  
"Zim? Is that you?" she asked, her voice sounding a bit meek. Zim, despite the fact he was attempting to keep a hateful demeanor felt a pang of pity for the frightened girl.  
  
"Err...yes?" he replied.  
  
"Good." Saying so, she seized the collar of his shirt and yanked him close until they were touching noses.......if Zim had a nose, of course. "Hold still so I can destroy you."  
  
"What're you talking about?" Zim growled, slapping her hands away and backing away a few steps. If Dib was bad, Gaz was ten times worse. He had been especially careful not to trifle with her until he had the proper means of doing so. In this stage of his research, he was still vulnerable...especially if a cretin like Dib could constantly best him in his ignorance of Earth's substances and customs.  
  
"I'm talking about my Game Slave. You broke it. I. WANT. A NEW ONE." Amazingly, she had been able to keep ahold of the cartridge that had ruined her portable video game system and hurled it at Zim. It struck him harmlessly in the chest as he caught it, eyeing it a moment. He recognized it almost immediately and snarled at her, annoyed that something as dangerous as this had come into her hands. She must have obtained it from him when they were riding on that "cheese box" as he had heard its driver call it.  
  
"HA! This is no mere 'video game'! This is an Irken implosive chip, you foolish earthling!!!" Zim, immediately after the words left his lips, realized his mistake....and remembered that he had left his contact lenses and wig downstairs. He was standing before Gaz fully revealed with nothing but his wit to protect himself...  
  
....in other words, he was doomed.  
  
"WHAT did you call me?" She asked, quirking a brow.  
  
"Nothing. I said nothing." he replied quickly, backing away.  
  
"And what's with the costume? Halloween's not till next month." she grumbled, extending a finger and poking at one of Zim's red eyes. She was startled to find it tender and moist beneath her touch, and not the cold plastic goggle lens she had thought it to be.  
  
"My eye!! AKK!! It huuurrtttss!!" he wailed, slapping both of his spidery hands protectively over his hurt eyeball. Gaz blinked, stunned. "Wicked girl-beast!!" he hissed, turning away from her.  
  
"That's your eye?" she asked, still somewhat doubtful. Any minute now, he'd turn on her and laugh hysterically at her for buying his stupid prank. But then he'd not be laughing for very long as he found his head firmly lodged in the ceiling...so it really made no difference to her.  
  
"What did you think it was, you ignorant human??" he snapped, wincing slightly and rubbing at the corner of it. "Mmnnhh...oww..."   
  
"Then Dib ISN'T crazy..." Gaz stated, eyes wide and mouth hanging slightly agape.  
  
"That's entirely debatable" Zim snorted, crossing his arms and twitching his antennae irately.   
  
"What are you?" She asked, reaching out and inquisitively touching the side of the irken's head.  
  
"A science experiment if word of this gets out..." he replied bitterly, visions of himself on a dissecting table, looking down in horror at his own array of organs filling his head. "But you being the spawn of that oilbag Doctor Membrane, I suppose that its inevitable."   
  
"What makes you think I'd tell dad? I could come into the house with my brains hanging off my face and he wouldn't even notice." she stated coldly, giving one of Zim's antennae a pull to confirm that it was real.   
  
"Oww!! Foul earth monster!!" he squealed, bearing his teeth at her.   
  
"Or maybe I SHOULD tell dad." she grumbled, taking offense at the invader's remark.   
  
"Feh...you can't stop me! None of you can!!!" he declared. Gaz regarded him coolly as he did so.  
  
"Am I supposed to be impressed?" she spat, crossing her arms over her chest. Zim's confident expression slipped a notch. It still puzzled him as to why his tactics for intimidation seemed to have no effect on anyone at all on both Irk and Earth.  
  
"Oh you will be." he vowed, pointing a spindly finger at her. "And someday all will bow to Zim! All you EARTH-ians and your pathetic ice cream trucks of sustinence will be destroyed forever!!!! AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"   
  
"Right." she snorted, shaking her head skeptically. "I've coughed up scarier stuff than that."   
  
"Woo hoo! Visitor!!" a high-pitched voice declared. Gaz looked up to see what looked to be a bipedal mishapen dog scampering into the room. Her aura of hatred was momentarily lost to surprise as the strange being cuddled up to her leg, cooing and hugging it.   
  
"Gir, attack!" Zim ordered.   
  
"Yes, my master!" Gir replied in a violent robotic voice, giving a stiff salute and then lunging at Gaz, knocking her flat on her back.   
  
"GAH!!!" she shrieked as she collided with the floor.  
  
"I like yooouuuu." Gir grinned at her, the robotic malice gone from his voice and the dog hood folded back to show his robotic features. "Whatcha doin' on the floor?"  
  
"Nrrrggghhh...." Zim growled, slapping his forehead. "Gir, you were SUPPOSED to attack---nevermind." his voice trailed off in frustrated disgust.   
  
"Wanna pretend we're dust bunnies??" Gir inquired hopefully.   
  
"If you want to keep your limbs, you will get off of me....NOW!" Gaz snapped, shoving the robotic unit off of her chest. "Look," she spoke, her attention on Zim once again. "Get real. Pretending to be a kid isn't going to work forever."  
  
"And why not, you vile receptical of all that is..." he paused, thinking of another insulting adjective "...vile?" he retorted. "My disguise is flawless."  
  
"That's not a disguise, you idiot." Gaz snapped. "Only reason you're getting away with it is because the kids in my brother's class are so brainwashed by that crone teaching it that the only thing they hear anymore is the recess bell. And if my moron brother can see through it, anybody else can."  
  
"That's not true." Zim snarled, stamping one foot. "It had YOU fooled, did it not??" He supposed he really ought to have been puzzled as to why she wasn't frightened by the fact that he was an alien and instead was speaking to him as though it was no big deal in her book.  
  
"You actually think I waste as much time looking at you as my idiot brother does? There's more important things in life." she muttered, rolling her eyes. She was referring, of course, to her Game Slave and all of the games at home that she had yet to beat her standard ninety-seven times.  
  
"Paugh....remove yourself, human." Zim growled, making a dismissing motion with his hand. "I have no time for this!"   
  
"Alright." she growled, heading for the door. "I'm going." she turned the knob and paused in the threshold of the door. "See you at school tomorrow WITH my new Game Slave, ibZim/b/i." she placed extra loathing emphasis on his name as she slammed the door. Zim breathed a sigh of relief, glad that his home was his own again.  
  
"She's nice." Gir grinned, looking up from where he was rolling in a pile of spilled popcorn on the floor that had been upset during Gaz's struggle with the parental bots from where it had been sitting on the couch.   
  
"Nice?? Gir, our mission is to wipe the humans OUT! Not befriend them! They most certainly are NOT nice!!!!" the irken ranted. Gir blinked blankly in reply.  
  
"Caterpillars are nummy." the robot stated matter-of-factly. "They dance ALL the way down."  
  
"This is serious, Gir!!" Zim shouted. "She knows. She knows about us, and if she tells anyone else, our mission is ruined!! My defenses were down but never again! Zim is only gotten the better of once!!! We need to be very careful around this "Gaz" person from now on. Do you understand?"  
  
"Can we get Freezies for dinner?" Gir asked hopefully, having ignored everything Zim had just said. Zim felt his eye twitch with utter disgust at the pint-sized robot.  
  
"Just...just forget it. Forget I said ANYTHING!!!" Zim growled. Gir assumed a stiff saluting posture, his eyes shifting to a deep red.  
  
"I obey, my master!!" he cried, racing out of the room squealing joyously. Zim shook his head. The Tallest had assured him that this robotic unit was the most advanced Irken technology available, and he was not one to disagree with them, but there were some times when he allowed himself his doubts.   
  
Now then...this business with the earth girl. What could he do to placate her so that she kept her mouth shut about what she had seen? This "Game Slave" she spoke of...the tiny monitor she constantly paid hommage to every moment of the day. Perhaps if he obtained a new one of those, she would go back to turning her brains to ooze and allow him to go on his way with his mission. It was worth a try anyway...  
  
"GIR!!!" he shouted as the robot tromped back into the living room, its dog hood back in place. "Come, Gir! We must make a visit to The Store before its too late!" Hurriedly placing a leash around his robot slave's neck, Zim bolted for the front door, remembering only as he stepped out onto the front porch that he still lacked his Earth disguise....and quietly, hoping no one had seen him, retreated back into his dwelling.  
  
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"And furthermore, you have no idea what you're up against!!" Dib stated, pacing back and forth in front of his sister as she perched on the couch, attempting to play her copy of Kill & Kill Some More on the family's video game console. "What if he's carrying diseases, Gaz? Huh? You could be infected and not even know it!!"  
  
"Are you STILL talking?" she sneered, her thumbs busily tapping buttons. Dib's amber eyes narrowed behind the lenses of his glasses. Why wasn't she seeing how idiotic she had been? Did he always have to point out people's errors to them?  
  
"FINE!! Ahem....fine." he calmed himself. "Don't come crying to me when you melt into a pile of slime because you didn't listen." Dib straightened his trenchcoat slightly, trying to look important.  
  
"When have I ever come crying to you about ANYTHING?" Gaz muttered, inwardly cursing as her player was struck by falling debris of the building he had just annihalated. Dib opened his mouth to retort and then fell silent again. "Thought so." she snapped. "Now get out of my light."  
  
"We're not finished here, Gaz." he warned her. "Not until you promise me you won't go near that creature again!"  
  
"Yeah, whatever, 'Mom'." she replied coldly. God, all she had done was sit next to him on the bus. It wasn't like they had been holding hands or anything. Gaz dared not mention her confrontation with Zim earlier, not because she feared what Dib would do to him, but because she couldn't stand the sound of her brother's voice anymore. The idea of finding a blunt needle and thread and sewing his lips together as he slept was becoming more and more appealing by the minute.  
  
"Well alright then." he nodded firmly. "I can see that you see the error of your ways and I'm glad that we had this little chat because---"  
  
"I'm giving you till the count of three....and when I look up you had BETTER be gone." Gaz interrupted. Dib blinked, and then soundlessly shuffled out of the room. Gaz could hear his footfall on the steps as he went up to his room and she shook her head. What an utter moron. Her thoughts returned to Zim. A real alien living right in her neighborhood and probably lighting the fuse to destroy the earth as she sat and played video games. Good, let him. At least he had guts, she had to give him that. That guy was even shorter than she was and hellbent on the fact that he was going to take over all of humanity.   
  
"He'd better have my game slave tomorrow." she said to herself sourly as she completed the bonus stage and advanced to level three.   
  
  
END OF PART 1 -- TBC 


	2. Playground Casualties

((Part two is done after a few delays. No mushy stuff yet, guys, but I'm getting there. I hope you like and, as always, R+R is welcome))  
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Zim shivered in the chilly morning air as he stood on the corner awaiting the arrival of the bus. The Game Slave's cardboard package dug uncomfortably into his back from where he had stuffed it into his knapsack along with his other daily requirements and his allottment of homework for the night. Getting the new video game system hadn't been easy...those clerk creatures certainly acted odd every time he tried to leave with his chosen items. Something about forgetting to pay. Idiot humans. At the very least, this would hopefully keep Gaz quiet and out of his way though he loathed having anything to do with her, let alone doing her a favor.  
  
A loud drone in the distance caught his attention as the bulky yellow form of the bus appeared on the horizon. "Finally." he grumbled. It screeched to a halt in front of him and the door slid open. The first thing the irken saw, as he did every morning, was its driver...who in all appearance was a human man with the exception of the fact that (s)he wore ghastly amounts of cosmetics and had somehow squeezed its bulk into a canvas skirt that showed off a pair of massive hairy legs. His first few days of skool when he had ridden this strange form of transit, he had spent much time debating on the creature's gender.   
  
"You gettin' on or what??" Ms. Kathy barked, sounding every bit like a hardened drill seargent. Zim, startled, scampered up the stairs and scanned the rows of half-sleeping worm babies, seeking a place to sit. He felt sick as he saw that the only vacancy seemed to be beside Dib, who already was leering at him accusingly. He shuddered visibly with disgust. Yup, it was going to be another one of those days, apparently. "SIDDOWN!!" the driver shrieked. "Let's get this crate rollin'!! Think I spent fifty years in the armed service and fifty grand on a sex change to haul you little maggots around???"  
  
Grudgingly, having to push himself every step of the way, Zim approached Dib's seat. As he moved to sit, however, Dib slapped a hand noisily onto the green vinyl cushion, glaring at him.  
  
"Sorry Zim." he glowered. "This spot's for Earthlings ONLY."   
  
"YOU MOVE OVER AND LET'IM SIT, YOU FOUR-EYED LITTLE FREAK!!!!" Ms. Kathy ordered, shaking a meaty finger at Dib in the front mirror. Reflexively, Dib scooted as far over to the window as he could and Zim took a seat, unshouldering his knapsack and placing it in his lap. Once he was situated, he cast a cursory look around the bus...but didn't see Gaz anywhere.   
  
"Figures...now I have to haul this wretched electronic human pacifier around with me all day." Zim muttered.  
  
"What?" Dib snapped, glaring at him. There was a crazy hunted look in his eye...as there always was. It was as though the human feared that the entire universe was planning on destroying him and him alone.  
  
"Where is your sister?" Zim inquired. Dib's eyes instantly narrowed, his black hair wet and slick against his forehead from his hurried shower he had taken before rushing out the door that morning and increasing his ominous appearance.  
  
"Why...?" he hissed. Zim cocked a brow at him curiously.   
  
"I just...wanted to know." he answered, his hands fidgeting awkwardly. The last thing he needed was Dib to start another of his shrieking tangents in the middle of the bus where he'd have a captive audience. Dib looked skeptical a moment.  
  
"My father is driving her to school today. Fathers do that sometimes." he answered defensively. "Not like your father who is obviously a rudimentary robot with faulty circuits!!!" Zim cringed, ducking a bit in his seat.  
  
"Will you shut up??" Zim growled, glaring at the boy.   
  
"The truth hurts, doesn't it Zim?? And pretty soon, I won't be the only one who'll be able to see through your trickery!" Dib vowed. "Its not much longer for you, ALIEN!!!!!" he shrieked.  
  
"SHADDAP!!!!!" Ms. Kathy bellowed, effectively silencing Dib's tirade....and for the rest of the ride to school, the two adversaries held a silent staredown, both wordlessly promising the other's downfall.  
  
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Gaz stood at the bus loading zone at the front of the school, her hand shoved into her jacket's front pockets to hide the fact that they were twitching. She had never known that one could go through "Video Game Withdrawl" and needed a virtual fix more than ever. Before she had left for school that morning, she had packed in as much time in front of the television with a joystick in her hands as she could...hense the reason she had been late in getting ready for school and why her father had dropped her off on his way to the laboratory.  
  
Any minute now, the bus would be pulling in containing Dib that that moron Zim. "If he forgot," she said aloud "He's not going to live to see recess." As though on cue, another bus pulled in behind the ones that had already let most of their cargo onto the sidewalk. Gaz peered at the red number in the front window. "R106". Their bus. As the doors slid open and students began to file out, she gritted her teeth and waited.  
  
Dib got off first, spying Gaz standing nearby expectantly and hurrying toward her. "Gaz, get to class! Hurry! The alien was asking about you on the bus!! I warned you this would happen, you're his next target!!!!" he seized her shoulders imploringly. For a long moment time seemed to freeze and then Gaz idly looked down at her brother's hands firmly gripping her.  
  
"You're touching me." she growled. Dib jerked his fingers away as though Gaz's jacket had suddenly become scalding hot. "Where's Zim?" she grumbled. Dib's jaw dropped at her query. Had she gone completely crazy? No...Zim must have already gotten to her. Yes that was the only possible explanation. The alien was brainwashing his sister even as they spoke.   
  
"Ahem." Dib knew the voice before he even turned around.   
  
"Zim." Dib growled at the alien. "You stay away from my sister!! Stay away or I'll---" he was cut off as Gaz rudely shoved him onto the pavement, approaching Zim and assuming a menacing stance.  
  
"Well?" she asked, hands clenching in her pockets. Zim leered at her a moment before unshouldering his knapsack and placing it on the pavement. After struggling with the contents a moment, he produced the slightly dented Game Slave box and thrust it at Gaz.  
  
"Here." he sneered. She accepted it quickly, checking the box to ensure it was, indeed, just like her last one and not some cheap knockoff like the Thumbmaster 2000 and tore it open.  
  
"Thank you." she replied with just as much venom as she tore the Game Slave out of the shrink wrapped plastic it had been sealed in and turned it over to check the battery hatch. "Its empty." she stated coldly. It took all of Zim's willpower to not shriek in utter frustration and claw the wretched human's eyes out. "How am I supposed to play it with no batteries?"  
  
"YOU....didn't say you needed batteries." Zim growled through gritted teeth. He was trembling all over now...and not trying to hide it.  
  
"Well duh, Einstein." Gaz retorted. Beneath Zim's green skin she could see a purple flush beginning to show, and inwardly smirked. She wondered how much further she could push the alien until he exploded at her. Dib needed a considerately larger amount of needling until he blew up....but when one factored in that he was easily terrified of any sort of anger Gaz showed toward him, that wasn't surprising. "What are you? Some kind of idiot?"  
  
"You....you...." Zim clenched his eyes shut, trying to center himself. If he screamed, that would draw attention to himself from everyone else. Just what he didn't need. But something was about to come out of his mouth and he wasn't able to stop it. "FIYAH!!!!!!" he shrieked, waving his arms wildly before turning and storming away, up the stairs, and into the skool building. Zim's substitution of a curse for an explosion of gibberish made a bout of snickers rise in Gaz's throat, but she quickly swallowed them again, allowing herself a triumphant smirk before setting her backpack down, unzipping it, and taking out a plastic sandwich bag that contained her emergency stash of batteries.  
  
Dib simply shook his head as he watched his sister equip her new portable game system and then select a game from her collection and switch it on as if nothing had happened at all. What was going on?   
  
"Gaz, what in God's name are you doing??" Dib demanded.  
  
"Trying to beat level five." she replied non-chalantly.   
  
"He's the enemy!!" her brother implored. "And you're sending him out to get you toys???"  
  
"Uh huh." she muttered.   
  
"Di.....!!!" he squeaked in frustration as his hand collided with his forehead, painfully jabbing the bridge of his glasses into his nose. "You've gone crazy!" he declared. Gaz lifted her pencilled eyes from the screen of her Game Slave to spare him a momentary glare. "That's right!! You and ALL OF YOU!!!!" he yelled to the heavens. "Someday you'll ALL see that I was right!!! THESE ALIENS DON'T WANT TO BUY US TOYS! THEY WANT TO OWN US!!!!"  
  
His rant over, Dib looked up to notice that several random students had paused on their way to class to stare blankly at him and that Gaz had disappeared. He turned on his heel in time to see her disappearing into the skool, still ensconsed in her game. He sniffed in annoyance, looking at the sidewalk and kicking at a stray pebble. He'd show them all, somehow. His ears buzzed as the school bell screamed, alerting everyone that they should already be in class. Sighing, Dib trotted up the stairs, his trenchcoat trailing behind him as he did so.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"Today, class, I would like to open with the topic of modern music. And how it slowly DESTROYING our culture." Ms. Bitters stated, a tape recorder held in her emaciated claws. "Let's start by looking at a popular artist amongst you children....Strange Bob Raruvic." a scattering of cheers went up from the class's attendance. "SILENCE!!!" the cheers went abruptly silent. The ancient woman crossed the room, taking no steps at all but rather eerily hovering toward the electical outlet and plugging the recorder in. "Now listen closely." she instructed, setting the machine down on her desk and pressing Play.  
  
Oh he believes he can flyyyy  
At least he does whenever he gets high  
Gets on the table and I hear him say  
"I'll spread my wings and fly away!"  
He believes he can soar...as he runs into the sliding door  
He believes he can---  
  
Ms. Bitters cut off the nasal parody of an otherwise well-known melody. "A 'hilarious' poke at a song that, even when its not being made fun of, contributes NOTHING to society." she snorted. "But...when played backwards..." she prodded a finger at another button.   
  
You're all DOOMED!  
All of you!   
Yes, even YOU!!!  
DOOOOOM!!!  
Doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom etc.  
  
None of the students had the nerve to state that the backwards "recording" sounded uncannily like their teacher as she let it run, seating herself at her desk and burying her crooked nose in her leatherbound copy of Dante's Inferno, satisfied that she had accordingly traumatized her students for the day.  
  
Zim sighed softly, rolling his eyes behind his contact lenses as he quietly opened his desk and slipped out a piece of notebook paper and took his pencil out of its metal cradle at the top of the desktop and began to doodle a frighteningly accurate sketch of himself standing atop an iron cage containing Dib and laughing. "Soon..." he promised himself. A world wasn't conquered in a day, after all. He tapped the eraser against his jaw, casting a look around the room. Most of the children were staring straight ahead with a horrified expression as the foretelling of doom continued to drone on the tape recorder...a few had fallen asleep, and then, as always, there was Dib.   
  
The earth boy, while pretending to read his Biology textbook, was staring fixedly at Zim as though he was expecting him to sprout another head at any moment. Zim shot him a glare out of the corner of his eye, scowling icily as Dib mouthed the words "I'll destroy you". The irken cast a look at the clock...another ten minutes until recess. It would be a stretch, but he decided he could go that long without exploding as he returned to his "art".   
  
His next sketch manifested itself into a picture of Dib, smoke coming from a gaping wound in his head as a scrawled version of himself held a blaster and grinned insanely. After a moment of thought, Zim smirked and began to draw a figure standing on the other side of Dib, this one planting a laser blast directly in the bespectacled boy's hind end. There was only one other person in the skool building who hated Dib more than he did and that person was none other than his younger sister.   
  
He hurriedly scribbled in a pair of dark eyes and a sadistic smile. Before long, Gaz stood holding the other blaster. Perhaps she WAS a foul earth beast, but they shared that one thing in common. He pondered folding it up and tossing it onto Dib's desk to see the reaction he'd get but decided against it.   
  
"Well! Enjoying yourself, are you?" Dib's sarcastic voice sounded from directly behind him. Zim cringed and wheeled around in his seat to face his rival. "Oh, and what have we here?" he inquired, making a grab at Zim's desktop and successfully abducting the drawing. Zim made no move to stop him, narrowing his eyes to as much of slits as his lenses would allow. "I don't know what planet you come from, but us earthlings consider something like this as a threat!" Dib snapped, disgusted at both the lack of talent in the piece and fact his sister had been included in it.  
  
"So?" Zim snarled.  
  
"So I wonder what the principal would have to say about something like this?" Dib said with mock-thoughtfulness as he folded the paper in half and scratched the side of his head with it idly. "Hmm....oh, I know! They'd call the police!" he glowered at the alien. "And they'd lock you away! And then they'd HAVE to listen to me! And then you know what, Zim? They'll cut apart your brainmeats!!!"  
  
"HA!! You and your police insects don't scare me!" Zim declared, standing. Dib felt his grip tighten around the paper, crushing it in his hand as the two adversaries sized one another up. And then...lifting the tension from the classroom, the recess bell sounded and children, like hairless lemmings, poured out of the building and onto the playground. Zim, grudgingly turning away from Dib, walked stiffly out of the room and outside. He had almost wished Dib had thrown a punch so he'd have an excuse to attack him and possibly end his problems with the earth boy then and there.   
  
"The enemy will show his weakness by dealing the first blow." an old Irken proverb resounded in his head in a sing-song voice. He recalled it was one of Tallest Purple's favorite phrases as he and Red had overseen the troops' training in the previous years. Zim, being a creature of immediate action, had often tossed this particular bit of advice to the hellfires when the first sign of action reared its head. However, this being a strange planet, he was drawing all he could from his training.  
  
He paused at the doorway to the playground, peering outside to ensure that it wasn't raining or that there were no nearby puddles that someone could carelessly send splashing in his direction. Satisfied that it was safe, he ventured into the sunlight. Nearby, some children were engaged in a game of 'Crack The Whip' and a bit further down, a game of dodgeball was taking place. Zim, having realized early on that he wasn't an athletic sort, headed for the swing set. At least there, his organs weren't in danger of becoming putty from an incoming ball. The swings were mostly empty, he found, as he struggled into the first one he came to.  
  
"What do YOU want?" a familiar voice inquired, accompanied by electronic blips and tinny music. This time, Zim didn't even turn, already knowing who occupied the swing beside him. This day, quite frankly, was starting to get on his nerves. Being ping ponged between the two siblings' ill will toward him was getting to be too much of a bad thing.  
  
"I have a self-destruct button." he stated jovially with a large false smile, as though he was simply commenting on the weather. "Say another word, and I'll grab onto you and press it."  
  
"Yeah right." Gaz muttered, drawing in her breath in an angered hiss as her player fell just short of reaching the other side of a gap and tumbled to his death.  
  
"Do not mock my button!" he growled, rolling up his sleeve to show the module with the tiny red button in the middle of it and poising his finger over it. Gaz lifted her head, simply looking at him for a long moment.   
  
"Are you always such a dweeb?" she inquired, making a disgusted noise as she returned to her game. Zim, rising to the bait, smirked a bit.  
  
"I don't know. Are you always so smelly?" he retorted. Gaz, not expecting him to have come up with a comeback at all, blinked twice to show her dismay but did nothing more as she continued to play.  
  
"Slimebucket." she shot back.  
  
"Human filth." Zim answered non-chalantly.  
  
"Geekoid." she returned automatically.  
  
"Purple-backed rat creature." the irken stated, pretending to buff his gloved nails on the front of his shirt.  
  
"Creep." Gaz had audibly put her game slave on pause and was now glaring at Zim.  
  
"Near-sighted Zeeglark."  
  
"Is that your face, or did your neck throw up something?" Gaz inquired bitterly. Zim's mind stuttered, having not been prepared for a question. After a moment of trying to get his train of thought back on its rails, he gave up and sat in defeated, angry silence pumping his spindly legs and attempting to get his swing to go.  
  
"Faulty human technology..." he sighed, shaking his head in distaste.  
  
"The X button on this Game Slave sticks." Gaz stated.  
  
"Ask me if I care, Gaz. Just....go on, humor me. Ask me." he urged sarcastically.   
  
"Feh. Is THIS why Dib wants to see you field dressed by rabid gophers?" she asked.  
  
"Do I look like I know what's going on in that inpenetrable skull of his?" Zim snorted.  
  
"At least that's one thing we can agree on." Gaz answered. "Sometimes I just want to wrap my hands around his neck---"  
  
"---and strangle him till he turns ten shades of blue." Both Zim and Gaz paused as they realized they had stolen one another's sentences.   
  
"Hm. Guess we DO think alike." she stated, sounding not-at-all interested and continuing to play her game as Zim suspiciously checked the back of his head and neck for a neuron transmitter someone may have planted on him when his guard was down. It was bad enough he was suspected, he didn't need to be broadcasting his thoughts to the humans too. Not finding one, he slid out of the swing, all the while eyeing Gaz out of the corner of his eye suspiciously. "Where're you going?"  
  
"What do you care?" he asked flatly.  
  
"I don't." she shrugged, her eyes never leaving the screen of the Game Slave. "I'd move if I were you." she added half-heartedly. Before Zim could ask why, a soccerball slammed into the back of his head, making red stars momentarily dance before his eyes. "Idiot." she grumbled as Zim collapsed on his face and the owner of the ball tromped up behind the fallen irken to reclaim it.   
  
"Is he okay??" a voice called from the field.  
  
"Yeh, he's fine." the beefy kid who had approached grunted, grabbing the ball up beneath one pudgy arm and examining Zim. "Its that green kid." he noted.  
  
"Oh. He's a wuss! Kick him!" the voice called back.   
  
"Heh....alright." he smirked, drawing back his foot and planting it firmly in Zim's side.   
  
"YARGH!!!!" Zim yelped, scrambling to his hands and knees. Gaz's eyes shifted upward to watch as the kid retreated with the soccer ball and then to Zim to see if he'd get up. He seemed alive....good enough. She unpaused her game and went back to firing at a rather large dragon that was guarding the entrance to the Faerie Realm.   
  
"Die..." she willed it mentally as her player jumped, just narrowly avoiding one of the beast's acid wads. One more shot should just about do it....she poised her thumb over the V button, ready to fire as soon as the dragon opened its mouth again. The shot was never fired....in fact, the Game Slave was jolted straight out of her hands and onto the ground as something jostled her body. Gaz watched in silent horror as the battery hatch popped free and the two Double A's clattered onto the pavement. Ruined. She'd have to start all the way back from The Gate Of The Ancients!! Fury burning in her narrow eyes, she looked downward to see Zim clinging to her ankle, eyes squeezed shut and a pained grimace on his face.  
  
"My....my flinnadon...." he groaned, clutching at the right side of his lower belly. If he was going to count his blessings, at least his squeedly-spooch and eeronz felt intact. Instead of helping, Gaz gave her leg a violent kick, sending him sprawling on his injured front onto the sidewalk as she hopped off of the swing and landed squarely on the irken's back, which made a most unsavoury crunching noise.   
  
"You really must not have a will to live." she growled, hopping off of his body and stooping to place the batteries back into her Game Slave and ignoring the labored grunts nearby as Zim drew himself wearily to his knees.   
  
"Ennngghhh..." Zim groaned, taking a deep rasping breath.  
  
"I mean, do you know how long its going to take me to get back to that stupid dragon? At LEAST five minutes." she scoffed, clicking the battery hatch closed again, switching her game back on and reseating herself on her swing. Though she tried her best to pretend that she couldn't hear Zim's pained noises for the next several minutes, eventually she found that they were effecting her gameplay. At length, she had finally reached her limit and put Warriors Of Panic on pause. "Fine. If you're gonna be a baby about it..." she muttered as she slid out of her swing once more, seizing Zim's impossibly thin upper arm and dragging him behind her along the pavement.   
  
She decided she'd drop him at the nurse's station and from then on, he'd be their problem. At this point, frankly, she'd do anything to get him to leave her alone. Who knew? Maybe she'd still have a few salvagable minutes of recess afterward. Several children favored her with an unsavory look as she meandered up the stairs, Zim's limp form making a meaty thwap on each step. He made a protesting grunt as she heaved the skool door with her shoulder and dragged him inside. "Stop complaining." she snapped. "We're almost there."  
  
Eight hallways later, they arrived at the nurse's office, more commonly referred to as "the quarantine unit" by the students as Gaz kicked the door open, hauling Zim in behind her. The receptionist, a girl who looked freshly out of high school and incredibly bored, sat idly playing with a plastic snowglobe.  
  
"Yeah?" she inquired, sparing Gaz a cursory look before returning to watching the bits of white plastic drift through the water.  
  
"Yeah. I think this kid's brain is broken." the violet-haired girl said, pointing at Zim's inert form on the floor with a shrug.  
  
"Uh huh..." the receptionist muttered without even looking at the fallen irken, giving the globe a shake. "Take him down to the cot room. There's a nurse around here somewhere, I think." Gaz gave a put-out sigh and grabbed Zim by the ankles, dragging him across the tiles with a soft hissing sound of his clothing against the floor. Luckily, he wasn't very heavy...otherwise she would have left him out on the playground for the crows to eat...if they liked alien meat, of course.  
  
As she passed the threshold, Gaz worked her grip under Zim's arms, trying to wrangle him into her arms so that she could deposit him onto a cot. After struggling a moment, she managed to heave him most of the way onto one of them on his back, one leg draped limply over the side. Gaz stood a moment, regarding him silently before quietly switching her Game Slave on again.  
  
"You owe me one, Zim." she stated flatly as her game fired up and she left him behind. The bell signalling recess's end sounded shrilly as she quickened her pace just a bit. Mr. Crowson, her teacher, was known for threatening tardy students with "the belt". While none of them had actually SEEN the belt, they had heard about it. It was nine feet long, eight feet wide, and it had hooks on it, that would tear the meat from your body. No one had been late to Mr. Crowson's class in over twelve years, suffice to say.  
  
Shortly after Gaz had left, a round red-headed lady bustled into the cot room, carrying a metal tray of various medical impliments with her. "Oh dear!" she exclaimed, upon seeing Zim. "And what happened to YOU, little boy? You weren't fighting, were you??" she sighed, shaking her head as she began a custom check of his body, feeling his belly and chest for broken bones.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Zim didn't know how long he had laid there floating in his own personal sea of agony, but he had been awakened by the choking stench of some foul stinging liquid that the overfed nurse beast had applied to a scrape on his forehead he had acquired during Gaz's "escort". Rubbing Alcohol, she had called it. After several minutes of bickering with her that he was fine and that there was no need in the known universe to phone his parents, he had been given a slip of paper admitting him back to class and a grape lollipop.   
  
He was still sore from his manhandling, but was sure he'd shake it off by tomorrow at the latest as he shifted the lollipop into his cheek pocket, letting the too-sweet grape flavor wash over his snake-like tongue. It hurt slightly to walk...the incident on the playground had likely bruised a few muscles, but had done no real damage to his bones or organs. That was a relief. The last thing he needed was to have to delay his mission due to being dehabilitated while his body regenerated a ruined innard.  
  
As he turned down the hallway leading to his classroom, the irken's thoughts shifted to Gaz. Tallest, how he disliked her sometimes. She resided in a very awkward place on his list of people..somewhere between a sworn enemy with her bursts of rage and a kindred spirit in the way that both of them hated all of humanity. He knew that if he had really wanted to, he could have refused to retrieve a new Game Slave for her after her other one had been destroyed. It was general intimidation and the knowledge that Gaz possessed the power to beat the hell out of anyone who opposed her despite their size, he supposed.  
  
It was too bad she was a human, really....someone like her could have done well in the irken army. Bah, that was foolspeak. She was a human, just like the rest of them. A clump of rancid meat to be wasted. There was no way she could ever be held in as high a regard as an irken of any sort...not even the shortest! Zim shook his head at his own foolery as he arrived outside of Ms. Bitters' door and entered.  
  
"--the point of this lesson being, that if Jacob here was to mistake this beaker of arsenic for his can of soda, there would be nothing left of him but a bubbling puddle of GOO!!!" Ms. Bitters cackled at the students who listened with rapt, horrorstruck awe...especially Jacob. At the sound of the door closing, she turned her head in his direction. "You're late, Zim." she growled, cocking a brow behind her thick glasses.  
  
"I was infirmed." he answered simply, handing her the note. She accepted it between two of her impossibly long fingers, reading over it.   
  
"Very well, take your seat." she snapped. Zim, knowing he had gotten off easily this time, walked as fast as he was able without increasing the discomfort in his side and belly to his desk and sat down, innocently folding his hands on the desktop and casting a quick look about the room to make sure that no one was looking at him.  
  
"And that concludes our chemistry lesson for the day." the old crone smirked, her ancient eyes scanning the rows of students. The fright in their eyes always did her withered heart good as she slammed the textbook shut and pushed it aside. "Now then, you all had a poetry assignment last night." there was a garbled murmur of agreement from the class. "To better assure ourselves that there is absolutely NO talent in this room whatsoever, you will read them aloud in front of the class. DIB!" The black-haired boy jolted, shaken out of his fantasies of UFO's and Science Fiction.  
  
"Yes Ma'am! Coming Ma'am!" he stuttered, wrangling a piece of paper out of his desk and scurrying up to the front of the room. "Ahem...I call it, 'The Death Of An Alien Race'." he grinned sinisterly in Zim's direction. The irken, however, was staring off into space. Hmph...no matter, the power in his words would capture the alien's attention soon enough.  
  
"Green and sitting in this very class  
I alone know the secret!  
But do you listen? You are all blind!  
The alien, he sits among us.  
But the humans have the upper hand.  
He alone has come, with the promise of more.  
He will know the touch of cold metal  
Probing, DEFILING his insides!  
I will---"  
  
"Very nice, Dib. D minus." Ms. Bitters' interrupted as she non-chalantly sat, peeling an orange with her pointed nails.  
  
"D minus??" Dib protested. "But---"  
  
"I gave you five sympathy points for proper use of 'defiling'. Siddown." she snorted. Dib opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again, deciding it would be no use to argue as he shuffled uncomfortably back to his desk. To add insult to injury, Zim had paid his presentation no mind as he watched a beetle crawl along the floor. "ZIM!!!" she shrieked, eliciting a startled yelp from the irken. "You're next."  
  
"Of course." Zim leered, wishing all sorts of diseases on the old bat as he rummaged around inside of his knapsack. After a moment, he produced a paper and meandered to the front of the room. As he stood, however, and got ready to speak, a horror dawned on him. The words...they were scrawled in what looked to be a green crayon...and the horrible use of letters. This wasn't his at all! In fact, it looked to be Gir's work that had been mixed amongst his own. "Rrrrghh....that STUPID robot!" he cringed.  
  
"We're waiting, Zim." Ms. Bitters grumbled impatiently.   
  
"Err, can I just--" he began.  
  
"NOW!!!!" the teacher roared. The alien had no choice as he bit his tongue a moment and then began to read off of the paper, feeling queasy.  
  
"You never feed me. I'll sit on your face. That will show you.  
Scratch me there! Yes above my tail! Behold, elevator butt.  
The rule for today: Touch my tail, I scream real loud. New rule tomorrow.  
I leap into the window. I meant to do that!  
A blur of motion, then silence. Me, a paper bag, what's so funny, master?  
You're always on the computer. Let's see you ignore my sitting on your hands!  
My small cardboard box. You cannot see me if I can just hide my head.  
Terrible battle. I fought for hours, me and Pig. What is "global conquest"?  
I am a brave hunter! I kill pine cones and mosquitos! The vacuum cleaner scares me.  
I wanna go outside! Oh no, I got out! Let me back in!!!  
Oh no! Master is trapped in the bathtub! To the rescue!  
Master is so strange. He lies still in bed for hours, then screams. My feet aren't that cold!  
I sing to show I love you. I dreamt I was a mongoose. Want to smell my butt?"  
  
Zim's teeth gritted at the chorus of laughter that erupted from the class and hung his head. Ms. Bitters' eye twitched noticeably.  
  
"As I was saying, class, there is absolutely NO talent in this room. NONE!" she snapped.   
  
"But that wasn't my---" the irken protested, meekly knowing it would be useless.   
  
"F!!!!!" she hissed, grinding her teeth and daring him to defy her. And then, very calmly. "You may sit down." Zim sighed as he returned to his seat. Most definately, it was going to be one of those days.   
  
  
END OF PART TWO ---TBC 


	3. Freezies, anyone?

*pantpantpant* zee chaptair eez complete! Thank you all for your kind feedback :) Already starting on chapter 4. Don't worry.  
  
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The next two days were uneventful as far as skool days went, though Zim was certain it was like Dib and his sister were breathing down his neck a bit more than usual. Dib would harrass him in class, that much was expected at that point, but then on the playground or the lunch tables, Gaz would seek him out and just sit there, near him, bemusedly playing her Game Slave until his lip nervously twitched with each click of the buttons. The irken, quite frankly, didn't know what to make of her behavior, but found it to be very unnerving...but then, he had come not to like humans' company in general very much.  
  
And now, Gaz sat across from him in the cafeteria, busily playing her video game adaptation of Rework The Dead as Zim tried to busy himself with choking down a few bites of the human slop on his plate. His throat protested mightily, trying to upheave the spoonful of creamed corn he had taken, but he forced it down nonetheless. Once he had recovered, his eyes settled on Gaz. What did she want? She never gave a reason or excuse for following him. She was always just....THERE. A long uncomfortable silence followed with the underlying drone of Gaz's Game Slave. At length, she raised her eyes to look at him. Reflexively, he glared at her until she reverted to her entranced state.  
  
"Why are you here?" Zim snapped at last.   
  
"Free country." she replied flatly. "And its REALLY cheesing my brother off." Upon hearing this, Zim cast a look at the table that Dib and Gaz usually occupied and found the earth boy to be sitting alone, fists clenched with a plastic spork in one of them and glaring daggers in the irken's direction. "Wanna come over after school and see if we can get him to have a conniption?" she offered.  
  
"I've no time to meddle in your human conflicts." Zim replied disinterestedly as he eyed his carton of milk suspiciously, sniffing at the contents and wincing slightly as he took out his matter scanner, running it over the strange substance to see how it it could possibly be safe for consumption.  
  
"I've got the new Neo Anole game for the SlaveMaster." she added, trying to sweeten the deal. Zim sniffed to show his apathy toward her statement. Gaz gritted her teeth behind her thin lips. What kind of loser turned down a chance to play a SlaveMaster, alien or not?   
  
"Let me see if I have your logic straight, wormbaby. You seek to annoy your brother by annoying me?" Gaz shrugged in reply.  
  
"That's about the gist of it, yeah." she answered.  
  
"FOOL!!" Zim clenched his fist. "You trifle with powers you cannot possibly understand! You and your puny race are alive merely on my whim! At any given moment, I could SQUASH you like a bug!" saying so, he clenched one spindly fist around his milk carton, showering himself in the contents. He froze, milk dripping down his face and puddling around him on the floor. If he was to count his blessings at this point, it was that it wasn't water, at the very least.  
  
"Meet me down at McStucky's after school. We could get a couple of freezies." Gaz told him.  
  
"I will NOT be seen in public with earth scum!" Zim vowed, pointing accusingly at her as he wiped milk off of himself with his free hand. "And besides..." he added as an afterthought. "I don't have any money."   
  
"I just got my allowance, Zim..." she muttered, putting the Game Slave on pause. "But mark my words...if you don't pay me back, you will forever writh in COMPLETE AND TOTAL AGONY!!" her voice took on a horrifying and forboding tone as she delivered her last line, and then, in her completely normal tone: "So how about it?" the irken debated a moment, making some hasty mental calculations. "Its not like its a date or anything."  
  
"Well....alright..." he muttered, sounding incredibly unsure. Upon hearing this, Gaz hopped up and walked away from the table, not looking up from her game as she went. As she had hoped, she was closely followed by her brother's scurrying footsteps and frantic questions.  
  
"What was that all about?? Gaz, talk to me!!" he implored. "Gaz..." his voice shifted to threatening, shaking his finger at her. "I DEMAND that you tell me!" When that had no effect, he switched to another tactic. "If you don't tell me, I'll..." he paused to think. "I'll tell dad you're communicating with alien lifeforms!!" her pace didn't slow one iota as she kept going. "C'mon, Gaz!!!" he wailed, chasing after her out of the cafeteria and onto the playground. Zim watched them go, feeling a trifle sick. He didn't like freezies and he didn't like Gaz. Combine the two, and he wasn't sure WHAT he was in for.  
  
And she certainly seemed to be going out of her way just to irritate Dib. Then again, Zim decided that if Dib was HIS brother, he'd probably go out of his way to irritate him as well. It was kind of funny when you got down to it...the way his eyes would get twice their size, and how he'd grind his teeth....he reminded Zim of one of those Slaughtering Rat People the Tallest had threatened the troops with many a time. It made him smirk just thinking about it. Alright then...he'd humor her. If nothing else, suffering through an afternoon with a smelly human would be nothing compared to Dib's agony when he saw them in close proximity. "I will destroy him...." Zim grinned, inwardly cackling.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
The school day seemed to last forever until, at long last, the bell rang and children eagerly piled into the buses and their parents' cars. Dib felt himself snarl as he watched Zim ascend the bus stairs and sit near the front in an empty seat. He would keep his sister away from that creature...even if he had to do it manually.   
  
"So...ahh..Gaz! Heh.." Dib stated awkwardly, grinning a bit too broadly at his sister who was still sitting beside him. She hadn't notice Zim get on the bus as she was too enthralled in beating level forty three of Rework The Dead. "Ya know what? I'm having a bit of trouble getting past the ice caverns on Stonekeep. Think maybe you could help me out when we get home?" He hoped this would attract her attention and, above all keep her from noticing Zim.   
  
"I've got plans." she answered flatly.   
  
"Aheh...really!" Dib forced a dry chuckle. "What...ahem...sort of plans?"  
  
"Me and Zim are going out." she replied. Dib's jaw fell agape as he found himself unable to speak for several moments.   
  
"To...do....what?" he asked with some difficulty.  
  
"None of your business." she snapped as she looked up and noticed Zim sitting near the front. "I'm gonna go."   
  
"No Gaz! Don't!!" Dib implored, grabbing her around the waist as she stood, eliciting a startled squeal from his younger sister before she turned to glare at him, trembling with rage and eyes widening to show their dialated purple irises. "I mean..." Dib's eyes darted guiltily to the floor and back up to her face. "I...want to watch you play your Game Slave!!" Gaz's arm drew back and then connected mightily with Dib's face, sending him sprawling back against the bus window before she sat back down.   
  
"Fine." she spat. "But don't ask me any annoying questions."  
  
All the way home, Dib pretended to be completely entranced with Gaz's gaming skills, applauding her strategies for making it through the levels, and every once in awhile shooting Zim a triumphant glare. The irken seemed a bit puzzled in the times he had caught Dib's accusing eyes on him but paid it little mind. His mind was preoccupied with what would happen shortly. Being seen in public...with a human...GAZ no less, had effectively daunted him into fretting.   
  
"Just as long as I refrain from making her angry, I'll be fine." he assured himself. Damn, he had so many other things he'd rather be doing with his afternoon. He had yet to send the Tallest his bi-weekly report on his mission and no doubt they were on the edges of their seats to learn more about his findings. The house needed its weekly disinfecting, Gir had a system short-out that needed tending to...but no. His afternoon would be occupied at this McStucky's organization.   
  
The idea occurred to him, yet again, to simply not go. And just as quickly, the image of that Gaz creature breaking down his door with murderous intentions pushed this idea straight out of his head. It may just be a friendly gesture, but he doubted it. He doubted everything about these humans. As the bus rolled to a stop on his street, Zim hurriedly hopped up and left, eager to be away from Gaz for now.   
  
He scurried up the walkway and slammed the door to his home, leaning against it as though the demons of hell themselves were on his heels. He assured himself, yet again, that he would be fine. .....But what if he wasn't? What if this was a plan of Gaz's to expose him to everyone? "Calm down." he said aloud, removing the wig from his head and wringing it in his hands. Even if she did reveal him, he could destroy himself and protect the Irken race. He HAD been given that option after all....though it seemed, more often than not, the Tallest had been more than eager to try and get him to "test" his button just to make sure he hadn't been given a faulty one.  
  
He took a deep, cleansing breath and slumped his shoulders a bit, attempting to relax.  
  
"MASTER'S HOME!!!!!!" a voice that was undenyably Gir's, shrieked as the costume-clad SIR unit darted from wherever it had been hiding and pounced Zim as best as it could, wrapping its stubby metal arms about Zim's waist. "Mastermastermastermastermaster!!! Guess what *I* did today??" he asked in a voice that was almost entirely too fast to be understood.  
  
"Made it possible for me to be laughed at by a room full of stinking earth weasels?" he snarled, recalling Gir's handiwork on his poetry homework.  
  
"Nooooo." Gir giggled. "I fed your tape player toothpaste!!" Zim cringed, gritting his teeth.  
  
"You...!!! Why did you do that???" he asked, just below screeching level.  
  
"Cuz I couldn't find the syrup." the robot answered as though it was the most obvious answer in the world. Zim felt his fists clench so tightly that his fingers dug into the pads of his palms and threatened to draw blood.   
  
"Nevermind!" he declared suddenly. "I don't have time for this! I'll deal with you later, Gir!" he vowed, shoving past his robot assistant and into the kitchen where he quickly lifted the seat to the toilet marking the entrance to his underground lab and stepped inside. Within moments, he was flushed beneath his house via a transport tube. As his boots hit the floor, Zim shed his "human" disguise and bustled toward the main computer console. Sending his report to Red and Purple wouldn't take more than a few minutes...and if Gaz got testy about him being late, he could use the excuse that he had been "powdering his nose", as humans liked to say instead of just coming right out and stating that they needed to evacuate themselves. He paused a moment and shook his head. No, that wouldn't work either....he didn't have a nose to powder.  
  
He sifted through a nearby pile of papers before emerging with a disk in his grasp that contained all of his findings for the past two weeks. It occurred to him briefly, that aside from the passing words he had exchanged with his tallest over his months spent on earth, they never once gave him any feedback about his findings on Earth or its inhabitants. "They're busy Irkens." he assured himself. "I'm sure that they're spending every moment of their spare time studying my findings. This was a very special mission, after all."  
  
Zim slipped the disk into a protective glass sleeve so that the strain of transport wouldn't scratch it and then hurriedly punched in a series of keys on the control pad.  
  
"Request to contact Irk sent. Awaiting reply." the computer informed him. Zim took a deep breath, standing at his full height and putting on his best "official" face (which looked as though he had just bitten into a lemon.) There was a crackling of dead static for a long moment. "Accepted. Opening channel now." the computer informed him, and a moment later, the image of Purple and Red crackled onto the screen.  
  
"What is it NOW, Zim?" Red muttered, rolling his eyes. Purple stood behind him, head rested on one spindly hand as he regarded the monitor with little interest.  
  
"My tallest!" Zim exclaimed, his antennae twitching hurriedly in salute. "I've come to deliver my latest findings on this planet, Earth!" he stated. "I think you'll find these to be especially interesting."  
  
"Yeah, yeah, sure Zim." Red replied, stifling a yawn. "Just zap it on up here and then go do....Zimmy....things." he faltered, waving his hand dismissively. Zim, refusing to acknowledge the blatant disinterest, triumphantly placed the disk onto the transfer platform and watched as it disintegrated into tiny pinpricks of light as it was beamed up to Irk. On the monitor, it appeared before Purple and he tweezed it between his thumb and forefinger, looking at it as though it were a dead insect.  
  
"Yes, yes, I'm sure it will be prove to be very fascinating." the purple-eyed irken sighed, carelessly tossing it over one shoulder.  
  
"Now, if you don't mind, we have stuff we need to get done up here." Red told him, and then quirked his fingers to slash the air with invisible quotation marks. "SECRET MISSION stuff."   
"I understand fully, Sirs!" Zim replied eagerly, mistaking their evasive attitudes for them wanting to review his research privately where they could concentrate better. "Zim, over and out!" As the connection was terminated, Zim smiled, feeling good about himself. Then again, talking to the tallest always made him feel better....reminding him that he DID have a purpose.  
  
Now it was time to get to the other matter at hand, meeting Gaz at McStucky's.   
  
"Computer!" he commanded. "Locate this "McStucky's" place of business and give me its exact coordinates."  
  
"Processing..." it said in a gentle female voice...and then abruptly cleared its mechanical throat, reverting back to its baritone male voice. "PROCESSING SIR!! OH HOW I PROCESS!!" it screeched. Zim cringed, making a mental note to run a virus scan on its database when he returned home. There was a whirring sound and then a soft blip as a mapscreen came up, a blinking red beacon showing Zim's destination. It appeared to be within a few blocks of his place of residence.   
  
"Excellent." the irken nodded. "It shan't be a long journey at all." he wrung his hands, grinning.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Gaz slapped two dollars down on the counter as the clerk, an obese man who spoke broken english, handed her a Chocolate/Strawberry Freezy Swirl. "You gots...." he paused, punching random numbers on the cash register's keypad. "....fiddy-siz cent change!" he announced proudly, pulling two quarters, a nickel, and a penny and thrusting them back at her. Gaz muttered a thank you and shoved the coins into her pocket, shuffling out the door and out front to wait a bit longer.  
  
How long could it possibly take that idiot to go home, toss his bookbag on the couch, and get his alien green butt down here, after all? He was probably dinking around in some secret lab or something. Or maybe Dib had tried to break into his house using his "advanced technology" mail-ordered directly from sci-fi magazines and as she waited, Zim had him pinned to an examination table, impaled by hundreds of dissection needles. The thought, as entertaining as it was, didn't even make her crack a smile. The fact was, she was out in the hot sun waiting for him...and if he didn't show up soon, he was going to know the definition of pain next time she saw him.  
  
As this thought finished itself, she heard shuffling footsteps and looked up, seeing what looked to be a very short old man dressed in rags and dragging a familiar-looking green puppy along behind himself. As she inserted the straw in her lips and began the excruciating process of attempting to hoist the frozen Freezy up the narrow shaft far enough to taste it, she overheard said old man muttering obscenities to himself about how blasted hot it was and how his beard itched. The voice was familiar too, actually.  
  
"Where have you been, Zim?" she spat sourly before he had even begun his initial approach.  
  
"Fool!" Zim hissed, scurrying up to her and clamping a hand over her mouth. "How did you know it was me?? You cannot recognize Zim!!!"  
  
"Mmphmrrphh..." Gaz muttered irately behind the irken's gloved fingers before reaching up, throwing his hand angrily aside and wiping chocolate/strawberry mix off of her top lip.  
  
"Touch me again, and there won't be enough left to identify your corpse." she threatened. "And that disguise is even worse than the one you use at skool."  
  
"Its ingenius!!" he countered, leering at the earth girl and daring her to say otherwise again.  
  
"Whatever." she reached into her pocket, withdrawing a handful of change and thrust it at the alien. "Go get your stupid freezy and bring me the change." she instructed. He opened his mouth to say something in protest, but at length, felt his jaw go slack as he closed it again. Maybe later...it wouldn't be a good idea to test her at the moment, he decided. Not out in public. Wordlessly, he accepted the money and disappeared inside. Gaz sat back and waited, reclining on the bench.   
  
"Hi!" a voice squealed. She looked beside her to see that Zim, in his haste to go inside, had forgotten Gir who sat beside her, still dressed in his green dog suit, dangling his feet over the edge of the bench and swinging them idly. "Whatcha doin'?" Gaz slapped her forehead, not in the mood to make small talk, least of all with an annoyingly loud robot. As she did so, Gir took a sudden interest in his leash, giggling as he whipped the air with it like a pint-sized Indiana Jones and then, giggling like a madman, began to jump rope with it.   
  
Zim returned a moment later, a large freezy clutched in his hands. He had never partaken of one of these freezy creations before...the way he saw it -- frozen, boiled, liquified, burnt, all human slop was the same. He held in his hands something affectionately titled "The Suicide". As near as he could figure it, all it was was a concoction of a little of every flavor of freezy the machine had to offer. He had yet to try it, but already knew he wasn't going to like it as he sat down on the other side of Gaz as Gir rigged up a rudimentary "vine" with his leash and swung down the back of the bench with a hearty tarzan whoop.   
  
"Change." Gaz ordered, holding out a pale hand. Zim, grumbling under his breath, drew the coins out of where he had concealed them, much to the confusion of the store clerk, in his false beard, and dumped them into her waiting palm. Gaz studied the amount handed back to her for a moment, and, seemingly satisfied, tucked it back into her pocket.  
  
"So tell me, creature..." Zim growled, swirling the multi-colored frozen liquid around in the paper cup he had been given. "....why it is that you've demanded I alter my schedule of events to sit pointlessly?" there was a beat of silence as he clenched a fist and held it up dramatically. "My time is valuable." he said in as low and threatening of a voice as he could muster.  
  
"Maybe I like you." she replied sharply. Zim's eyes widened in shock and was at a loss for words very briefly. "But since I don't, maybe I just needed an excuse to get out of the house." Relief washed over Zim after hearing this. The last thing he needed was one of these earth beasts inflicting their fickle emotions upon him. She took a deep breath, but instead of letting out a sigh, the words "Life sucks." escaped her lips.  
  
"Feh." Zim snorted in reply. "You earthlings have no idea what torture and pain truly is. Always with your cheap coffee houses and pitious sheep's whining..." the irken sounded highly resentful as he said this.  
  
"Yeah but YOU'VE never been on student counsil." she replied, jabbing a finger at Zim's shoulder. "And its bad enough my brother won't give me a minute to myself outside of class, but then you add in that I get to spend the rest of this week's lunch periods sitting in a room of giggling ditzes wondering if the school dance's decorations should be blush pink or deco pink---" her grip got tighter and tighter until her freezy simply burst in her hand, sending clumps of brown and red slop all over the bench.  
  
"Dance?" Zim inquired, wiping the generous portion of freezy that had landed on his face away with the back of his hand.  
  
"Yeah." she muttered sullenly. "And if that isn't bad enough then there's this freak---"  
  
"HIYA GAZ!!!" a squeaky voice exclaimed. Gaz's face went slightly red and her eyes narrowed as a young, overweight boy with black hair strode out of McStucky's clutching a grape freezy and a TinglNut bar in one hand.   
  
"Nrrghhhh..." she snarled with disgust as he approached the bench, scrambling up beside her and seemingly oblivious to the fact that he had plopped directly onto Gir who screamed and struggled beneath his massive buttocks.  
  
"Ya wanna share my candy?" he asked, waving the red-wrappered candy bar in her face. Gaz shied away from it as though it was a wasp and then lurched forward, giving him an immense shove. Zim could almost swear that the pavement vibrated as the sack-of-guts human hit it.  
  
"Get lost, Rich." she hissed. "I'm afraid if you hang around, I might inhale your fat cells and choke to death."   
  
"Ehehehe..." he grinned widely. "I like a girl with a sense of humor." he grinned, showing off his garrish braces, snorted, and then wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve. Gaz cringed in utter disgust. "So, .Gaz!" he said to break the silence. "There's...umm...a dance!"  
  
"And....?" she asked, her voice dripping with venom.   
  
"Ya goin' with anybody?" Rich pressed, approaching her. Gaz recoiled, wrinkling her nose up in extreme distaste.   
  
"I wouldn't go with you if I had a festering disease and you possessed the only known cure." she spat. Rich laughed in reply, a high-pitched unnerving giggle that it seemed only overweight computer nerds were capable of.  
  
"Why not??" he demanded, stomping a foot. "My mom says I'm cool!"  
  
"Because." she answered simply. "I'm going with Zim." Zim, nearby, still in his old man disguise, had been sampling a small mouthful of his "Suicide" and spat it unceremoniously in Rich's face as he heard these words.  
  
"WHAT??" the irken and Rich shrieked at roughly the same time. The fat boy seemed unaware of the freezing slush dripping down the sides of his face and into his shirt.  
  
"The green foreign kid??" Rich squealed. "Are you NUTS????"  
  
"Get lost." Gaz replied disinterestedly, casting her eyes to the sidewalk.  
  
"You PITIFUL fool!!!" Zim shrieked, leaping to his feet and pointing an accusing finger at Gaz. "Zim does not have time for your horrid earthling dances!!" He noted the fact that Rich was goggling at him as though he was insane and remembered that he was supposed to be in disguise as he slowly sank back in his seat. "I mean...ahh...if I KNEW this Zim fellow, of course...eheh..." he stated awkwardly.  
  
"Gaz..." Rich tried to appeal as Gaz slid down from her seat on the bench and attempted to walk past him.   
  
"You talk to me again...." she said in a low voice, seizing him by his shirt collar. "and your own mother is going to pass you by on the street by the time I'm done." and saying this, she shoved him backwards, stomping away. Rich watched her go, his immense bottom lip trembling. Zim had decided to take this opportunity to apprehend Gir and retreat to a safe distance as he felt a rather unsavoury rant building and thought it best to do it under the seclusion of his own roof.  
  
As his feet pounded against the pavement, Gir shrieking in joy under his arm as he thought he was being taken for a ride, Zim fumed. He supposed it was his own fault, really, for agreeing to be drawn out with such a ridiculous request as to "go out for Freezies" with some horrid earthling in the first place, but she had shoved him a few thousand paces over the line when she had volunteered him to be her escort for this skool gathering she had spoken about. How could she? How could she DARE???  
  
He quickly rounded the corner to his block, his white strap-on beard coming askew on his face and his battered hat threatening to fly off if he ran much faster, but he didn't care. He felt absolutely filthy as though millions upon millions of tiny earth viruses were invading his system. He wanted nothing more than to go home and thoroughly disinfect himself and stay hidden in his basement laboratory until this "dance" was over and done.  
  
The irken's breath wheezed in and out of his lungs by the time he had reached his walkway as he hurried up the concrete path and into the sanctity of his base. As the door slammed behind him, he threw his head back and screamed. It reverberated satisfyingly back at him from all corners of the house as he dropped Gir to the floor and stomped inside.  
  
"The gall! The absolute NERVE!!!" he cried. "To think that someone of my importance to a top secret irken mission could spare an earth pig even a moment of my time!" the irken angrily kicked at the side of the couch, instantly doubling over in pain and hopping on one foot. As he did so, his telephone rang shrilly nearby. Zim froze, the pain in his toes momentarily forgotten. Who the hell....? He scurried forward and seized the phone. "Hello...?" he asked tentatively.  
  
"If you tell anybody what happened today, Zim, I'll destroy you." Zim had just enough time to register in his mind that it was Gaz's voice before there was a sharp click and the connection was gone. He didn't have time to ask her how she had gotten his number. Hell, HE didn't even know his own phone number. It had just been an added bonus the computer databases had placed in his home to make it more believably a human's. An inkling of hope surfaced in the irken then. Maybe she had only volunteered him because she had wanted to get out of an uncomfortable situation with the hippo-like human that had approached them at McStucky's. Perhaps she didn't plan on attending the dance at all. Well...for her sake, he hoped so. With a final shudder, Zim hurried into the kitchen and down into his laboratory via the toilet port. He needed a long, hot, cleansing.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Gaz hung up the phone with a sigh and headed in the direction of the upstairs. Mercifully, Dib had been nowhere to be seen. She hoped he was in his room on the internet. With any luck, he'd be ensconsed in a meaningful chat about UFO's and the fact that an alien was in his very own classroom with some other wide-eyed idiots he'd never meet face-to-face from another state. She wondered if he had told them about the time he had sworn up and down that the movie, ET, was really a sworn documentary and had run out of the theater screaming when he was six and cowered in the women's bathroom for an hour.  
  
Now that she thought about it, why was she on the student counsil anyway? She hated skool, she hated the students, and, well, everything about it. Why was she on a committee that focused on nothing BUT that rattrap? Oh yes, now she remembered. She had signed up because her teacher had appealed to the class by saying that all members would be able to skip out on their fourth period class every Thursday. Since Gaz's fourth period was Math, she had readily snapped up the offer...but found herself wondering if it was worth it.  
  
Her attempt to con her way out of being asked to the dance with Rich by stating that she had already said yes to Zim had landed her in a bigger mess than she had started out in. A random Shakespeare quote surfaced in her head tauntingly. "O what a tangled web we weave, when we practice to decieve"   
  
"Shut up, you old hack." she sneered as she meandered into her room. As a member of student counsil, she was obligated to go to the stupid dance. She hadn't been obligated to bring a date, but it looked as though that's precisely what she'd be doing. Well, whatever. Zim wasn't entirely unpleasant company, she thought to herself. It could be worse. MUCH worse. The thought of Rich's many quivering jelly rolls hanging out of the bottom of his T-shirt made her feel momentarily ill as she slammed her door shut and took a deep breath. It was only one night. It would work out.   
  
Things would be just fine.  
  
  
TBC..... 


End file.
